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His Name Is George Floyd (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice

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0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE; SHORT-LISTED FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE; A BCALA 2023 HONOR NONFICTION AWARD WINNER.
A landmark biography by two prizewinning Washington Post reporters that reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd's life and legacy—from his family’s roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, to ongoing inequality in housing, education, health care, criminal justice, and policing—telling the story of how one man’s tragic experience brought about a global movement for change.

“It is a testament to the power of His Name Is George Floyd that the book’s most vital moments come not after Floyd’s death, but in its intimate, unvarnished and scrupulous account of his life . . . Impressive.”
—New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)
“Since we know George Floyd’s death with tragic clarity, we must know Floyd’s America—and life—with tragic clarity. Essential for our times.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist
 
“A much-needed portrait of the life, times, and martyrdom of George Floyd, a chronicle of the racial awakening sparked by his brutal and untimely death, and an essential work of history I hope everyone will read.”
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song
The events of that day are now tragically familiar: on May 25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off a series of protests in the United States and around the world, awakening millions to the dire need for reimagining this country’s broken systems of policing. But behind a face that would be graffitied onto countless murals, and a name that has become synonymous with civil rights, there is the reality of one man’s stolen life: a life beset by suffocating systemic pressures that ultimately proved inescapable.
 
This biography of George Floyd shows the athletic young boy raised in the projects of Houston’s Third Ward who would become a father, a partner, a friend, and a man constantly in search of a better life. In retracing Floyd’s story, Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa bring to light the determination Floyd carried as he faced the relentless struggle to survive as a Black man in America. Placing his narrative within the larger context of America’s deeply troubled history of institutional racism, His Name Is George Floyd examines the Floyd family’s roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his Houston schools, the overpolicing of his communities, the devastating snares of the prison system, and his attempts to break free from drug dependence—putting today's inequality into uniquely human terms. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews and extensive original reporting, Samuels and Olorunnipa offer a poignant and moving exploration of George Floyd’s America, revealing how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world.
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    • Library Journal

      December 1, 2021

      Washington Post journalists Samuels and Olorunnipa bring impressive credentials to their biography of George Floyd. Samuels, a national political enterprise reporter, is a multi-prize finalist for his own reporting and a Polk and Peabody Prize winner for team reporting at the Post, while Nigerian American Olorunnipa is a political enterprise and investigations reporter who has covered the White House, has filed from multiple countries as part of the presidential press corps, and also serves as an on-air contributor to CNN. Here they examine how systemic racism shaped Floyd's life, moving from his family's North Carolina roots, to the ongoing issues he faced in housing, education, health care, criminal justice, and policing, to the story of his death and how it brought about a global demand for change.

      Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from March 28, 2022
      Washington Post reporters Samuels and Olorunnipa deliver an impeccably researched biography of George Floyd, whose 2020 murder by Minneapolis police sparked nationwide protests. After recounting the events leading up to Floyd’s death, the authors rewind to his early years in Houston’s segregated Third Ward in the 1970s and ’80s. Recruited to play football at Texas A&M–Kingsville, Floyd became the first in his family to attend a four-year college, but struggled to meet the academic requirements and eventually dropped out. Back in the Third Ward, he got sucked into the drug trade and spent more than a decade in and out of prison before moving to Minneapolis for a fresh start. Interwoven with the biographical details are incisive sketches of the political and historical events that have shaped life for Floyd’s family and other Black Americans. Recounting how Floyd’s great-great-grandfather was forced to sell his landholdings in early 1900s North Carolina, the authors note that “between 1910 and 1997, Black farmers lost control of more than 90 percent of their farmlands.” Elsewhere, Samuels and Olorunnipa discuss the war on drugs, school segregation, redlining, and more. This multifaceted and exceptionally informative account is both a moving testament to Floyd and a devastating indictment of America’s racial inequities. Agent: Karen Brailsford, Aevitas Creative Management.

    • Kirkus

      Starred review from May 1, 2022
      An intimate look at the life of the Black man whose murder sparked worldwide protests and a reinvigoration of the movement for racial justice. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd died beneath the knee of White Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. The video of the killing made Floyd "a global icon for racial justice," write Washington Post journalists Samuels and Olorunnipa. Through painstaking research and more than 400 interviews, the authors sought to learn, "Who was George Floyd? And what was it like to live in his America?" As a child, Floyd dreamed of making a name for himself. "He was young, poor, and Black in America--a recipe for irrelevance in a society that tended to push boys like him onto its margins," write the authors. "But he assured everyone around him that, someday, he would make a lasting impact." As an adult, Floyd faced challenges related to addiction, mental health, education, employment, poverty, and criminal activity. Samuels and Olorunnipa trace more than 300 years of American history and Floyd's family history, placing his death within the context of the systemic racism that shaped his life. The authors got haircuts from Floyd's barber, visited the communities he called home, and talked to his extended family, friends, lovers, teachers, and acquaintances "to help the world to see Perry [as Floyd was known] as they saw him." Writing with cogency and compassion, the authors free Floyd from the realm of iconography, restoring his humanity. In these powerful pages, he emerges as a sensitive man with ambitions, successes, and failures. Both his loving nature and his despair are palpable, conveyed in heartbreaking detail. The recounting of his death is devastating to read, and the aftermath, despite his killer's conviction, is somber. Sadly, the congressional police reform bill named for Floyd remains unpassed. A brilliant biography, history book, and searing indictment of this country's ongoing failure to eradicate systemic racism.

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from April 15, 2022
      We saw him die. We say his name. Yet how well do we know George Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis police custody inspired a cataclysmic racial reckoning? This gripping oral history offers a behind-the-scenes look at the man, his loved ones and community, and the aftermath of his horrific death. Perry, as he was known to his family, was a complicated man, a dreamer with demons and unfulfilled ambitions who was deeply loved. Samuels and Olorunnipa enlarge on the poster image by introducing us to people whose lives were changed by encountering Floyd: family members, friends, teachers, lovers, co-workers, and the traumatized witnesses to his murder. Watching global protests for racial justice, Floyd's younger brother, Philonise, begins to question a lifetime of passive acceptance. Floyd's white girlfriend, Courteney, has a racial epiphany when Floyd and her student Daunte Wright are killed by police within a year. There are the officials who tried to minimize or exploit Floyd's killing, the cynical phone call from President Trump, the defense strategy highlighting Floyd's drug use and ""deploying the racist trope of Black men being too wild to contain." Derek Chauvin was convicted, but support for Black Lives Matter has waned, and Philonise wonders if the soul-searching made any difference. A wrenching chronicle of one of the most devastating events of our time.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Ongoing attention to police violence and racial injustice and the media attention sure to surround this vital and illuminating work make it a must-have.

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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